· The Walled Garden of Truth ·

Sanai...

The wise person (hakim) that, renouncing himself, made shine the Light of his poetry...

His rough and however sweet words of his work "The Garden Walled of the Truth", "Hadiqat al Haqiqa", are the Mystical and Universal Language of All Those that Helped and Help his fellow men, To be Fullness...

Messages of Hope "in the Time", for the sincere and humble seekerof "the True Peace and the Real Freedom"...

in the jar of unity; the rope becomes slender when reduced to a single strand."

"Your intellect is just a hotch-potch

of guesswork and thought,

limping over the face of the earth;

wherever they are, He is not;

they are contained within His creation.

Man and his reason are just the latest

ripening plants in His garden.

Whatever you assert about His nature,

you are bound to be out of your depth,

like a blind man trying to describe

the appearance of his own mother.

While reason is still tracking down the secret,

you end your quest on the open field of Love."

"The path consists in neither words nor deeds:

only desolation can come from these,

and never any lasting edifice.

Sweetness and life are the words

of the man who treads this road in silence;

when he speaks it is not from ignorance,

when he is silent is not from sloth."

"These learned fools, these thieves and pickpokets:

they use what they have learnt for highway robbery! Listen to me, you, lord of language:

better fill your heart with light,

than with a hundred thousand words;

when silent you are eloquence itself:

open your mouth, and you're a rabble-rouser."

"Nobody sees the heart and soul

of the seeker of Truth;

but his tongue speaks truly:

'I am the Truth'."

"For the wise man

evil and good

are both exceeding good.

No evil ever comes from God;

whenever you think to see

evil proceding from Him,

you were better to look on it

as good.

I'm afraid that on the way of faith,

you are like a squinter seeing double,

or a fool quarreling with the shape of a camel.

Evil can never arise from Him:

how should evil co-exist with Him?

Only the foolish and ignorant work evil,

never the beneficient friend.

If He gives you poison, deem it honey;

and if He shows you anger, deem it mercy."

"Have you never seen how a nurse,

in the earliest days of an infant's life,

one minutes leaves it crying in the cot,

and holds it to her breast the next?;

sometimes smacks it, sometimes soothes it;

nowdrives it away, now makes a fuss of it.

A stranger seeing this is angry:

'She doesn't care about the child' he sighs.

How could he know that the nurse is right,

and that this the way she has to work?

"Be contented with your luck;

but if you have any complaints,

go and take them to the Cadi*,

and obtain satisfaction from him.

-That's how the fool's mind works!" *Judge"Whatever befalls you, misfortune or fortune, is unalloyed blessing; the attendant evil a fleeing shadow.""‘Good’ and ‘evil’ have no meaning in the world of the Word: they are names, coined in the world of ‘me’ and ‘you’.""Your life is just morsel in his mouth; his feast is both wedding and a wake. Why should darkness grieve the heart? – for night is pregnant with new day."

"You say you’ve unrolled the
carpet of time,

"...", step then beyond life
itself and reason, till you arrive at God’s command."

"You cannot see anything,
being blind by night,

and by day one-eyed with your foolish wisdom!"

"My friend, everything
existing

exists through Him;

your own existence is a
mere pretense.

No more nonsense! Lose
yourself,

and the hell of your heart
becomes a heaven.

Lose yourself, and anything
can be accomplished.

Your selfishness is an untrained colt."

"You are what you are:

hence your loves and hates;

you are what you are:

hence faith and unbelief.

Hope and fear drive fortune
from your door;

lose yourself, and they will be no more.

"At his door, what is the difference

between Moslem and Christian,

virtuous and guilty?

At his door all are seekers

and He the sought."

"God is without cause:

why are you looking for
causes?

The sun of truth rises
unbidden,

and with it sets the moon of learning."

"In this halt of just a
week,

to be is not to be,

and to come is to go.

"And does the sun exist

for the cock to crow at?

What is it to Him

whether you are there or
not?

Many have come, just like
you,

to His door."

"You won’t find your way

in this street; if there is
a way,

it is on your road of
sighs.

All of you are far

from the road of devotion:

sometimes you are virtuous,

sometimes you are wicked:

so you hope for yourselves,
fear for yourselves;

but when your mask of
wisdom and folly

at last turns white, you
will see

that hope and fear are one."

"If you know your own worth,

what need you care about

the acceptance or rejection of others?"

"Worship him as if you could
see Him with your physical eyes;

though you don’t see Him,

He sees you."

"Whilst in this land

of fruitless pursuits,

you are always unbalanced,
always

either all back or all
front;

but once the seeking soul
has progressed

just a few paces beyond
this state,

love seizes the reins."

"The coming of death [of the 'ego'- "Mystical Death"]

is the key which unlocks

the unknown domain;

but for death, the door of
true faith

would remain unopened"

"If you yourself

are upside down in reality,

then your wisdom and faith

are bound to be topsy-turvy."

"Stop weaving a net about yourself:

burst like a lion from the
cage."

"Melt yourself down in his
search:

venture your life and your
soul

in the path of sincerity;

strive to pass from nothingness to being,

and make yourself drunk
with the wine of God."

"From Him forgiveness comes
so fast,

it reaches us before
repentance

has even taken shape on our lips."

"He is your shepherd,

and you prefer the wolf;

he invites you to him,

and yet you stay unfed;

he gives you his
protection,

yet you are sound asleep:

Oh, well done,

you senseless upstart fool!"

"He heals our nature from
within,

kinder to us than we
ourselves are.

A mother does not love her
child

with half the love that he bestows."

"You have broken faith,

yet still he keeps his
faith with you:

he is truer to you

than you are to yourself."

"He created your mental
powers;

yet his knowledge is
innocent

of the passage of thought.

He knows what is in your
heart;

or he made your heart along
with your clay;

but if you think that he
knows

in the same way that you
do,

then you are stuck like a
donkey

in your own mud."

"In His presence, silence is
the gift of tongues."

"He knows the touch

of an ant’s foot

moving in darkness

over a rock.

He always knows

what is in men’s minds:

you would do well

to reflect on this."

"Love’s conqueror is he

whom love conquers."

"Apply yourself, hand and
foot,

to the search;

but when you reach the sea,

stop talking of the stream."

"When He admits you to His Presence

ask from Him nothing other
than Himself,

When he has chosen you for
a friend,

you have seen all that there is to see."

"There’s no duality in the
world of Love

What’s all this talk of
‘you’ and ‘me’?

How can you fill a cup that’s full already?"

"Bring all of yourself to
his door:

bring only a part

and you’ve brought nothing at all."

"It’s your own self [‘ego’]
defining faith and unbelief:

inevitably it colors your perception.

Eternity knows nothing

of belief or unbelief;

for a pure nature

there is no such thing."

"And if, my friend, you ask
me the way

I’ll tell you plainly, it
is this:

to turn your face towards
the world of life,

and turn your back on rank
and reputation;

and, spurning outward
prosperity, to bend

your back double in His
service;

to part company with those
who deal in words,

and take your place in the presence of the worldless."

"The way is not far

from you to a Friend: you
yourself are that way:

so set out along it."

"You who know nothing of the
life

that comes from the juice
of the grape,

how long will you remain
intoxicated

by the outward form of the
grape?

Why do you lie that you are drunk?"

"How can you go forward?

There is no place to go;

How will you leap?

You have no foot."

"Not one knows how far it is

from nothingness to God.

As long as you cling to
your self [‘ego’]

you will wander right and
left,

day and night, for
thousands of years;

and when, after all that
effort,

you finally open your eyes,

you will see your self [‘ego’]
through inherent defects,

wandering around itself
like the ox on the mill;

but, if, once freed from
your self [‘ego’],

you finally get down to
work,

this door will open to you within two minutes."

"God will not be yours,

as long as you cling to
soul and life:

you cannot have both: this
and that."

"Bruise yourself [to "ego"] for months and years on end*; leave it as dead**, and when you have fisnished with your vile self, you will have reached eternal life and [true] joy... ".* The struggle against our own ego-self (nafs)," jihad al-nafs", is, truly," the greater struggle" (jihad al-akbar), the "holy" war" for our interior "sanctification", purification, that will alow us to reach "The True Peace and the Real Freedom" here and now... ** "The "Mistical Death " of the our "nafs-i-ammara" or "psychological defects"

"Remain unmoved by hope and
fear.

To non-existence mosque and
church are one;

to a shadow, heaven and hell likewise."

"The death of the soul is the destruction of life;

the death of the life [of the 'I', the 'ego-self '] is salvation for the soul."

"Never stand still on the
path

become non-existent.

Non-existent even to the
notion of becoming non-existent."

"And when you have abandoned
both

individuality and
understanding,

the world will become that."

"When the eye is pure

it sees purity."

"Unself yourself…

until you see your self [‘ego’]
as a speck of dust

you cannot possibly reach
that place;

self [‘ego’] could never breathe
that air,

so wend your way there without self [‘ego’]."

"Until thou sweep the path with the broom of Not*,

how canst thou enter the abode of Except God?

* "Fana or Fanaa": "The "Mistical Negation" of the our "nafs-i-ammara''or "psychological defects" , "The Mistical Death of the psycological ego" .

** [Notes in square
bracketsby editor]

"ON THE BLIND MEN AND THE AFFAIR OF THE ELEPHANT (Parable)"*

"There was a great city in the country of Ghûr, in which all the people were blind.

A certain king passed by that place, bringing his army and pitching his camp on the plain. He had a large and magnificent elephant to minister to his pomp and excite awe, and to attack in battle. A desire arose among the people to see this monstrous elephant, and a number of the blind, like fools, visited it, every one running in his haste to find out its shape and form. They came, and being without the sight of their eyes groped about it with their hands; each of them by touching one member obtained a notion of some one part; each one got a conception of an impossible object, and fully believed his fancy true. When they returned to the people of the city, the others gathered round them, all expectant, so misguided and deluded were they. They asked about the appearance and shape of the elephant, and what they told all listened to.

One asked him whose hand had come upon its ear about the elephant;
He said:- 'It is a huge and formidable object, broad and rough and spreading, like a carpet'.

And he whose hand had come upon its trunk said:

-' I have found out about it; it is straight and hollow in the middle like a pipe, a terrible thing and an instrument of destruction'.

And he who had felt the thick hard legs of the elephant said:

'- As I have it in mind, its form is straight like a planed pillar'.

Every one had seen some one of its parts, and all had seen it wrongly. No mind knew the whole,--knowledge is never the companion of the blind all, like fools deceived, fancied absurdities.

Men know not the Divine essence; into this subject the philosophers may not enter".

From*" The First Book of The Hadîqatu' l-Haqîqat or The Enclosed Garden of the Truth of the Hakîm Abû l-Majd Majdûd Sanâ'î of Ghazna."